The weather right now is like being in a snow factory. What I mean by this is we literally have an assembly line that has been working to produce snow for us since 5AM this morning, and will continue to go for another 24 hours.

The backbone of the assembly line is a frontal boundary that is draped across the eastern US. This frontal boundary is our conveyor belt. It is transporting packages of moist air from the south. And you can actually see it in the current radar - take a look:

So far this morning, the packages of moist air being transported by this conveyor belt have been steady, but actually pretty dry. The moisture has been just barely enough to produce some snow, so that snow has been very light (we've gotten about half an inch of snow over the past seven hours). But the conveyor belt is also transporting packages of air that are more moist. These more moist air packages will arrive locally this afternoon -by around 3pm. If you remember the update from last night, these are the packages of moisture that were initially expected to kick off the snow. Once the additional moisture arrives, we should see snowfall rates start to pick up a bit.

This will continue through about midnight. Around midnight a low-pressure currently developing off the North Carolina coast will start working on the conveyor belt. At that time, this low will basically walk along the conveyor belt splashing extra moisture into the packages. This extra moisture will help to increase our snowfall rates beginning around 2AM. This should all continue through the morning …say about 10AM or so… until the conveyor belt and the low shift off to our east. All-in-all this should result in about six inches of snow for the local area. And that's it - our snow factory!

Winter update
Updated: January 15, 2018

So far this season, Kingston's total snowfall has continued to hover right around the 13-year average. Tomorrow's snowfall is likely to keep us near average for another week. As we transition into February we will reach the critical point of the season. February is historically our most impactful month by far, and roughly half of all weeks between December and March that record at least 10 inches of snowfall occur in February. Seasons that record no weeks with at least 10 inches of snowfall in February have an 80% chance of ending below average, while seasons that have at least one week with 10 inches of snow in February have less than a 40% chance of ending below average. As much as I'm personally rooting for big snows, there's no way of really knowing what'll happen next month, so we'll just have to wait and see!